Skip PayPal – Send Money From Bank to Bank With Zipmark

Many of us use PayPal quite a bit to send and receive money, I know that I do. In fact Paypal is integrated into many online services, such as Eventbrite – so many of us use it more than we think.

There’s a new service I’ve been looking at called Zipmark, which let’s vendors/businesses/people transfer money from their bank account to the recipient’s bank account – instantly. No middleman. And, unlike services like PayPal, who charge higher transaction fees, Zipmark’s transaction fee is only 1% with a $5 cap.

Here’s a detailed overview of how it works from a Zipmark spokesperson:

Zipmark doesn’t require you to constantly log-in to your account to receive or pay money and is not a “clearinghouse” like PayPal that is actually moving money. Instead, Zipmark allows the payee to send money directly to the payer’s checking account. Below is a step-by-step process of how Zipmark has transformed the payment process for small businesses.

Wanda’s Interior Design sends her new client an invoice for $1,200 via email to her customer, Betty.

Betty receives the invoice, opens it and sees various ways she can pay for it (check via snail mail, PayPal or Zipmark).

Betty chooses Zipmark and a link takes her to the Zipmark registration site where she authorizes her bank to send money to that particular vendor (Wanda’s Interior Design).

Once registration is complete, Betty hits the “pay” button on Wanda’s electronic invoice and she authorizes payment for $1,200.

The next day Wanda’s Interior Design accesses their bank account online and sees a cleared deposit for $1,200 from Betty.

Wanda’s Interior Design offered Betty a secure and easy way to pay her bill once she received her invoice. For Betty, no time was wasted cutting a paper check, placing a stamp on the envelope and inserting the letter in the mailbox or taking it to the Post Office. No money is stored using Zipmark; Zipmark is just helping open the connection between the bank accounts to send and receive money.

“Zipmark secure digital checks improve the way small businesses send and collect money from their customers by bringing check payments into the 21st century,” said Jay Bhattacharya, CEO and co-founder of Zipmark. “Zipmark is as much a risk management platform as it is a payment platform. We take on the risk of the transaction and guarantee funds to billers.”

So, if you are looking for a new alternative to paying your invoices, with reduced fees and headache, maybe Zipmark is a solution that will fit your need. Let us know if you try it and what you think.

Carolyn Crummey is a business and technology strategist and the owner of VirTasktic (www.virtasktic.com), an agency dedicated to providing high-level virtual services to small businesses and entrepreneurs. A lover of technology and small business, Carolyn has built a career on the intelligent use of technology to increase business efficiency and productivity, which ultimately leads to greater profitability. Carolyn works closely with her clients to understand their challenges and helps them integrate the best technology solutions into their businesses so they too can enjoy great successes.
You can follow Carolyn on Twitter at @CarolynCrummey or @VirTasktic.